Alleging antisemitism is Labour right’s ‘defining narrative now’

Jeremy Corbyn leading the July 2014 demonstration against the Israeli war on Gaza. Corbyn’s long record of support for Palestinian human rights has led the Israel lobby to slander him as an anti-Semite. Photo RonF Flickr. Caption and photo from Electronic Intifada

While an Israeli operative’s efforts to “take down” Britain’s Deputy Foreign Minister, may appear to be the biggest scandal to arise out of Al Jazeera’s investigative documentary The Lobby, what became clear to me throughout the four-part series was that the primary function of the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) and other pro Israel groups in the UK working with the Israeli embassy was smearing Palestinians and their supporters with charges of antisemitism and other nefarious ad hominem claims. Jackie Walker, former vice-chair of Momentum, the leftwing of the Labour party, called this “a constructed crisis for political ends”.

Evidence of this runs throughout the four-part series. Mark Regev, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, at a private meeting held during the annual Labour Party Conference in Liverpool last September, advises key activist leaders of Labour’s pro-Israel contingent on strategy and talking points:

“Why are people who consider themselves progressive in Britain, supporting reactionaries like Hamas and Hezbollah? We’ve gotta say in the language of social democracy, I think, these people are misogynistic, they are homophobic, they are racist, they are antisemitic, they are reactionary. I think that’s what we need to say, it’s an important message.”

Here’s Elliot Miller, past president of the Jewish Society at the University College London (UCL) and currently national organizer for Student Rights, whose motto is “Tackling Extremism on Campus”, using the same strategy as Ambassador Regev during a violent exchange at UCL last October:

‘You’ is presumably all Muslims. Elliot Miller is a member of the very rightwing Henry Jackson society. Prior to joining HJS, Elliot worked in the Conservative Party.

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Truly “a constructed crisis for political ends”. I was reminded of the “Strategy of Tension“, the covert psychological warfare utilized by agents-provocateurs during the cold war intended to manipulate and control public opinion using propaganda, disinformation and weaponizing fear in order to achieve strategic aims. Unwittingly, often the very society being manipulated becomes the public enforcer; that’s the idea anyway. Certainly the strategy appears to be wreaking havoc within the UK’s Labour party.

Jennifer Gerber, director of Labour Friends of Israel, is captured saying in conversation at Labour’s annual conference that antisemitism is “the defining narrative actually now”. Defining narrative of what? The Labour party? Or the LFI’s strategy of taking down the leftwing branch of the party?

[Video of Jennifer Gerber, Director of Labour Friends of Israel at the Labour Annual conference: “That is I think going to be the defining narrative actually now, which is antisemitism” ]

Alex Richardson, parliamentary aide to MP Joan Ryan, the Chairperson of LFI, was also present during the exchange. He offered: “I think if it makes you feel uncomfortable that’s the point in which you call it out and report it.”

He said that MP Ryan “convinced” him to report an alleged claim of antisemitism “because I was made to feel uncomfortable.”

The young aide certainly looks uncomfortable, wincing throughout an exchange that takes place at LFI’s booth at the Labour convention between Jean Fitzpatrick, a Labour party member, and MP Joan Ryan. Fitzpatrick asks what LFI is doing to bring about a two state solution, an alleged aim of the organization. Fitzpatrick keeps saying she genuinely wants to know.

Ryan kept repeating the same message: they support and facilitate a two state solution, but she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, articulate how.

[Video of Joan Ryan not answering the question]

But she does Tweet, ‘We must remember, we must mourn and above all we must educate, so that racism & antisemitism can never flourish again’. Jan 17th, 2017

Sometimes people feel discomfort when they are cornered and do not know how to answer a question. It might make anyone feel uncomfortable, watching their boss or co-worker get tied up in knots flailing around unable to answer a simple question. Especially if your boss is an MP and the Chairperson of Labour Friends of Israel. But it doesn’t make the person inquiring a racist, or an anti-Semite. Especially when the question is a logical and a straightforward political demand.

If simply feeling uncomfortable is cause enough to file a report, this might help explain why Britain’s Community Security Trust (CST) reported 557 incidents of anti-Semitism across the UK last year, an 11% increase since 2015. It’s just not easy supporting and representing a state that is regularly charged with being an apartheid state, and participating in war crimes.

The climax of the exchange comes when Fitzpatrick implores Ryan to explain how LFI was facilitating a two state solution, and mentions money and prestige:

“I’m asking you how you are bringing this about… I’m asking you about the settlements …You’ve got lots of money, you’ve got lots of prestige in the world.”

Ryan is clearly trying to get out of the conversation prior to this final exchange, and her aide, Alex Richardson, has a pained expression.

Was it really discomfort that led the MP to misrepresent what Fitzpatrick said as evidence of antisemitism, file a report, and convince her parliamentary aide to file a corroborating report, and have the incident plastered all over the British press after the conference?

Ryan is well aware that LFI is well funded, and if it weren’t for its prestige, her allegations would never have landed in the headlines of the British press the next day. Is it really antisemitic to point out that her organization is well funded, when the Israeli government is giving a lot of money to the group via the Embassy?

In an undercover tape Al Jazeera aired, Shai Masot, an official at the Israeli embassy, introduced Robin, Al Jazeera’s undercover agent, to Ryan, mentioning “he’s trying to arrange another delegation maybe, activists from LFI”, Ryan then queried Masot about what happened to “names we put into the embassy?” to which he responded he had been authorized by the Israeli government to spend a million pounds. It’s not altogether clear what that money was authorized for. According to Al Jazeera (pt 2, 25:38), LFI stated “the conversation between Mr. Masot and their chairperson, Joan Ryan, had nothing whatsoever to do with LFI delegations.” Regardless, Ryan responded “ That’s a lot of money!” Is it anti-Semitic to point out (as JJ Goldberg, Jeffrey Goldberg, and Stephanie Schriock have in the United States) that wealthy Jewish pro-Israel funders are the bedrock of support for the liberal parties? Don’t go there, anyone; it’s a trope, according to Ryan.

And what does the money pay for? When Jeremy Newmark, Chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), announced the elevation of young Ella Rose to the post of JLM director, he explained that Rose “by no means… had the most Labour Party political experience” (in part one of the Al Jazeera series). But she could “play an incredibly critical role in the lead of the struggle against antisemitism in the Labour Party”.

JLM director Ella Rose

Rose proves her mettle later on in the series, when she accuses Jackie Walker, the director of Momentum, of antisemitism. Rose has dramatic gifts: she burst into tears (pt 2, 21:56), having to “stand in front” of Walker, after being exposed as an Israeli embassy employee by Electronic Intifada, and claimed that her critics are all anti-Semites and she doesn’t care if they all “die in a hole“.

Rose’s conversation (at 17:26 pt 1) reveals a trajectory of what could be perceived as a strategy of accusation (of antisemitism), a gotcha focus with the objective of trapping people, as a means of one-upsmanship so as to advance the profile of the Jewish Labour Movement on the right flank of Labour, aligned with the faction of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Rose explains why Newmark hired her:

“A new guard came in… then all the antisemitism stuff kicked off, and JLM vastly increased its profile. They thought we should probably hire someone political who actually knows what they’re doing. Before that I was at the [Israeli] embassy working with Shai.”

The suggestion by critics that anything untoward is taking place is angrily rebuffed. Labour’s right flank postures itself as the real victims– for being accused of falsely accusing! For example, Michael Foster, a generous Jewish donor (£700,000) to Labour, last summer accused Corbyn supporters of behaving like “Nazi stormtroopers”, and was suspended by the party for the abuse, leading to yet more glaring Blame-Corbyn headlines in the British press:

As if accusing members in your own party of being Nazis is acceptable discourse. Foster said he “could have easily referred to Mao and the Red Guard or Saddam Hussein and the Revolutionary Guard” when discussing Momentum. But he didn’t: He chose Nazis.

I’m reminded of the competition for leadership within our own Democratic Party, the accusations lodged against Keith Ellison or potentially anyone else challenging the pro-Israel flank of the party if they slip up. There’s an effort to drive the left on both sides of the Atlantic into a conversation about antisemitism, because the left doesn’t buy Israel’s victim status.

As for those targeted, the bigger fish the better, beginning with Jeremy Corbyn, of course, and his supporters in Momentum, like Walker. Labour party members are targeted for re-education programmes through Labour Party trainings on antisemitism, and if you slip up you’re subject to an inquisition with the threat of being thrown out of the party, loudly and publicly with the press cheering it on.

Even using the word Zionist can be detrimental to one’s reputation and get one reported. Unless, of course, you are one:

[Video: Ella Rose says, “I’m a Zionist, shoot me”]

Everyone in the UK, is well aware of the Labour party getting dragged through the mud ever since Corbyn’s left wing took over leadership of Labour in September of 2015. It’s time to end the strategy of tension. Hopefully this exciting Al Jazeera series will begin that process.

Jeremy Corbyn meets Board of Deputies President Jonathan Arkush and Chief Executive Gillian Merron, February 9, 2016. In an interview Arkush said of Labour: “All is not lost. The battle is there to be won. I’m saying to Jewish Labour members, join JLM and fight for the party, which has been taken away from you by people who don’t really represent traditional Labour ideals. People on the far-left is not the Labour party”

Al Jazeera reveals how charges of antisemitism by Labour group targeted Israel critics and saw some investigated.

By Al Jazeera Investigative Unit
January 13, 2017

Members, activists and at least one MP of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party described as “antisemitic” a member who challenged their pro-Israel ideas, despite some uncertainty over whether the member’s comments were actually racist, an investigation by Al Jazeera has found.

The charges, made at September’s Labour Party conference, led to the member being suspended pending a full investigation.

In total, the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) said it had seen three cases of antisemitism during the first day of September’s Labour Party conference, with the group of Israel supporters later debating the validity of two of them.

The complaints came in the wake of the Chakrabarti Inquiry, an investigation during summer 2016 into antisemitism within the Labour ranks. That report had concluded racism, including antisemitism, was not endemic within Labour.

Al Jazeera placed an undercover reporter within an influential group of politicians, activists and Israeli embassy officials working to drum up support for Israel, as part of a six-month investigation, The Lobby.

Ambassador: Antisemitic trend in left

The reporter, alias Robin, exposed the pivotal role of Shai Masot, who described himself as a senior political officer at the Israeli embassy.

Masot took Robin to the annual Labour Party conference in Liverpool, where they attended a briefing by the Israeli embassy.

“Some of the people here are more Palestinian than the Palestinians,” Mark Regev, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, warned his supporters.

“The fashion is if you are on the left today you are probably very hostile to Israel, if not antisemitic.”

Later, Robin covertly filmed a discussion at the Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) stand that saw a Labour activist investigated for racism following a discussion about a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

Heated discussion

A pro-Palestine activist, Jean Fitzpatrick, asked Joan Ryan, Labour MP and chair of LFI, whether the group was “very anti the settlements”, referring to the illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

“We make our view clear and we meet with people at all levels in Israeli politics and diplomatic circles,” Ryan replied, apparently avoiding answering the question directly.

“We believe in a two-state solution and the coexistence and self-determination for both people and that’s really important.”

Fitzpatrick then enquired about the group’s funding and suggested it enjoyed a good reputation.

“You’ve got a lot of money, you’ve got a lot of prestige in the world,” said Fitzpatrick. “A friend of mine’s son’s got a really good job at Oxford University on the basis of having worked for Labour Friends of Israel,” Fitzpatrick said.

Ryan became heated, accusing Jean of using an “antisemitic trope” and conflating a job at Oxford University with successful careers in Britain’s banking sector. Ryan then abruptly ended the conversation and walked away.

“At no point did I ever say that LFI will get people jobs in banking in the City,” Fitzpatrick later told Al Jazeera. “If you do talk about Palestine, it would appear you’re kind of sucked into having an accusation of antisemitism brought against you.”

Ryan has since said that it is the duty of all Labour Party members to report language that they believe to be racist or antisemitic, and that she believes her actions were appropriate.

Fitzpatrick’s references to the group having “lots of money and prestige in the world”, along with suggestions that they advance people’s careers, appeared to evoke classic antisemitic tropes, Ryan said.

‘I don’t know where the line is’

But some Labour members involved in reporting the cases later had difficulty in determining what antisemitism was, and whether indeed the exchanges they had witnessed constituted racism.

“A difficult moment was when that woman who told us that antisemitism, you know, is being concocted to crush [Labour leader Jeremy] Corbyn … Is that antisemitic, guys, I don’t know, like …?” said Jennifer Gerber, LFI director.

“I don’t know where the line is any more,” replied Michael Rubin, a parliamentary officer and pro-Israel activist.

Alex Richardson, Ryan’s assistant, said of Fitzpatrick’s case: “It is definitely on the line … If she had said the word Zionist I would have said one hundred percent. A hundred percent.”

He continued: “I think if it makes you feel uncomfortable, I think that’s the point which you call it out and report it, and that’s why Joan convinced me to report the one yesterday because I was made to feel uncomfortable, and although nothing anti-Semitic was said I’m sure there were undertones of it and it was brought up on that context.”

Richardson then said he suspected that Fitzpatrick “might be potentially banned because she said something that was antisemitic”.

Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian who viewed the recording of the exchanges, said: “It’s [clear] in the discussion that you have filmed that the woman was not antisemitic. They know it. She didn’t talk like an antisemitic person. She was a typical pro-Palestinian person who was worried about the violations of human … and civil rights.

“They are really scratching the bottom of the barrel to make a list of two and a half cases of antisemitism … they themselves are not totally sure that they fall into their own strict definition of anti-Semitism.”

He added: “It’s in a way pathetic, but it’s also worrying how such pathetic evidence can be used to intimidate Jeremy Corbyn into establishing an inquiry commission and making daily confessions that he’s not anti-Semitic and so on.”

‘Court Jew’

Earlier, Al Jazeera revealed how Jackie Walker, a black British Jew and Labour activist, was labelled an anti-Semite after attempting to debate the issues of Zionism and the inclusion of several global tragedies on Holocaust Day, in addition to the genocide during World War II. She was later suspended from the party pending investigation.

Walker told Al Jazeera that at one point during the Labour Party conference, the chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, Jeremy Newmark, allegedly called her a “court Jew”.

“Now anybody who is Jewish understands what that means,” she said. “If you are being abused as a black person in the same way you would be being called a house n****r.”

Walker added: “I would say there is a crisis in the way the antisemitism is being manipulated and being used by certain parts – not just in the Labour Party but other parties and the media to discredit Jeremy Corbyn and a number of his supporters.”

Jeremy Newmark denied describing Jackie Walker as a “court Jew” or saying or uttering those words in any context. He also said that he did not believe that this would be a fair or accurate description of Walker.

Israeli diplomat Masot, who was filmed during the investigation as he plotted to “take down” Britain’s deputy foreign minister, resigned after that clip of Al Jazeera’s investigation was released.